


Your Lips Feel Retro

by anotherwinchesterfangirl



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Drunken Kissing, F/M, Fluff, Miscommunication, References to Drugs, Steve Harrington Is a Mess
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-10-11
Updated: 2020-05-23
Packaged: 2020-12-09 04:36:36
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,750
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20988962
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anotherwinchesterfangirl/pseuds/anotherwinchesterfangirl
Summary: You’re well into your third week working at Family Video—your twelfth shift to be exact—when you finally come to terms with it: you have a massive crush on Steve Harrington.





	1. Just a Little

**Author's Note:**

> Work title from the song "80s Films" by Jon Bellion. Chapter title from the song "A Kiss" by The Driver Era.

You’re well into your third week working at Family Video—your twelfth shift to be exact—when you finally come to terms with it: you have a massive crush on Steve Harrington.

It’s not like you haven't always thought he was good-looking, because who didn’t think Steve Harrington was good-looking? But that was just the thing— _ everyone _ wanted  _ King Steve _ to look their way, so you refused to like him just on principle. Not to mention, he was kind of an asshole. Or at least, you’d thought he was an asshole. 

You flew under the radar pretty well in high school, so you weren’t surprised in the least when there was absolutely no recognition in Steve’s eyes when Keith introduced you as Family Video’s newest employee, despite the fact that you graduated together. But his welcoming smile took you off guard, and by the time he’d finished showing you around the store and explaining all the different sections of movies and their varying rental price points, you were open to the idea that this might not be the Steve Harrington you’d heard so much about in the hallways of Hawkins High School. 

You’re still not exactly sure  _ when _ you started feeling all fluttery and weird around him. At first it was just that he made you laugh every time you worked together—impersonating Keith’s monotone drone, setting up a domino-course of tapes winding through the aisles, taking your dare on how many Red Vines he could eat without throwing up. 

Then you thought you might actually be friends—when you accidentally rang a customer up wrong, Keith was pissed, and Steve took the blame. “Don’t worry, he’s not gonna fire me,” he whispered to you when you looked at him with wide eyes. 

It was a bunch of little things—when he lit up like a Christmas tree when this group of nerdy Freshmen came in on a Friday night, when he offered to give you a ride home so you wouldn’t have to wait for your brother to come pick you up, when you realized that he’s probably the only person on the planet that can make an ugly green uniform vest look good.

And now your knees go wobbly everytime he smiles at you. 

“Ladies.” His voice floats toward you over the rows of VHS tapes from where he’s working the register. The girls he’s helping giggle, and you cringe even as your heart pounds.

Yeah, you have a massive crush on Steve Harrington. The problem is you know Steve likes girls that look like Nancy Wheeler, and you look  _ nothing _ like Nancy Wheeler. 

The bell on the door jingles as the giggling girls leave, and Robin shouts from the back room, “Hey, Dingus! Let Y/N take the register for a while. Go do a check on New Releases and make sure nothing’s out of order.” 

Keith is off tonight (thank God), so Robin’s in charge. You still haven’t quite figured out why Steve and Robin are such good friends, besides the fact that they used to work together at Scoops Ahoy before the mall burned down, but they’re both hilarious and really fun to work with. You like shifts when it’s just the three of you best. 

“Hey, you’re on register,” he says as he walks up the aisle toward you. When you look up from your task—sorting through a bunch of new kids’ titles—he’s grinning at you. Your stomach does a flip. 

“I heard,” you say with a smile of your own. He knocks his shoulder into yours as you pass each other, and you can’t stop thinking about the spot where his body touched yours for the rest of the night.

**

You hardly have any customers for the last few hours before closing, and you’re so bored of arranging and rearranging the boxes of candy by the register you’re about to fall asleep. Finally 10:00pm rolls around and Robin comes up to turn the lock on the door. 

“Hey, you need a ride tonight?” Steve calls out suddenly. You look up from counting down the cash drawer and he’s dragging a very-full trash bag toward the back door. 

“Uh, sure. Let me just call my brother and let him know,” you say as he disappears around the corner. The phone conversation with your brother lasts about two seconds and reminds you why you’re working at a shitty video rental place so you can save up enough to buy your own car. You drop the receiver back into the cradle just as Robin leans over the counter.

“Hey, what are you doing on Friday night?” she asks. 

“I don’t usually plan that far ahead,” you lie. You know perfectly well that you won’t be doing anything on Friday night apart from sitting in your room reading. All your friends from high school—all three of them—went away to college, taking any semblance of a social life that you’d had with them. 

“Brian is having a party at his house, you wanna come?”

“A high school party? Isn’t that weird?” You’ve spent the past six months trying  _ not _ to be known as “that townie girl with no friends.”

“No! It’s just gonna be theater kids. Games. Booze. Drama. Steve’s gonna be there, too.” 

“Erm. I don’t know.” You finish counting the last of the pennies and mark the total on the closing sheet, scoop the pile into the palm of your hand, and dump it back into the drawer. 

“C’mon. Steve wants you to come.”

“Why would  _ Steve _ want me to come?” you ask, raising your eyebrows as high as they’ll go.

“Because he likes you,” she says, and your face flushes. 

“Yeah, right.” You shut the cash drawer with a little more force than you intended and bend to grab your purse from under the counter. 

“I’m serious,” she insists. You look up at her, and it’s clear that she’s not joking. 

“He tries to pick up every girl that walks in the door,” you say, defensive, but your heart is doing a weird stutter-stop thing that makes you want to take a deep breath. 

“He’s only doing that because that’s what we  _ expect _ him to do,” Robin says. “Trust me, I know what he looks like when he has a crush on a girl.” 

You raise your eyebrows, about to ask her what she means by that, when Steve comes around the corner, his car keys jangling. “Ready?” he says, thankfully oblivious to your conversation as he steps between the two of you. Robin gives you a pointed look over his head and you ignore her. 

“Yep,” you say, attempting to calm your racing heart as you follow Steve to his car.

**

Two nights later, you peer through the curtain out the front window, your stomach fluttering with nerves, questioning for the umpteenth time why you let Robin convince you to go to this party. 

By the time Robin pulls into your driveway in her mom’s woody station wagon, you’re seriously considering faking a headache, but then Steve bounces out of the backseat and pushes a hand through his hair, and you find yourself pulling the door open before he even knocks. 

“Hey,” he says with a tinge of surprise.

You take a deep breath to keep the nerves out of your voice. “Hi.” 

You step out onto the front stoop, pulling the front door shut behind you. You’re wearing heels, which you never wear to work, so you’re almost at eye level with him, and you’ve never been quite  _ this _ close to him before. His hair’s practically touching your forehead and you can tell he’s wearing cologne.  _ Oh, god. _

“Robin brought her friend Lisa, so it’s me and you in the back,” he says. He steps aside, gesturing for you to go ahead of him. 

Steve left the back door open, and you scooch across the bench seat as not-awkwardly as you can, which doesn’t work all that well, and wave hello to Robin and Lisa, who you just vaguely know from sharing a few classes together in school. 

“Hey, Y/N right?” Lisa says, friendly. Her lipstick is bright pink and matches her earrings.

“Yeah, hey.” You smile, starting to relax. These are nice people— _ friends _ , even—and if you can just keep yourself from doing anything embarrassing in front of Steve, this might actually be a fun night. 

**

Turns out, theater kid parties are actually a ton of fun. The music’s good and there’s  _ wine _ of all things, which you sip out of a plastic cup, very slowly because it’s kind of bitter, while dancing with Robin and Lisa. You haven’t seen Steve in a while, but most of the faces in the small crowd are familiar and they’re all friendly, and you start to wonder what you were so worried about. 

When your cup is empty and your feet are aching, you wander away from the noise of the living room and find a room down the hall with no one in it and a  _ really _ comfortable-looking couch. You fall onto it, the room spinning just a little, and kick off your shoes. If you had any idea how much dancing you’d be doing tonight, you never would have worn the stupid things, no matter how much you might be trying to catch Steve’s attention. 

Robin’s words ring in your head, like they’ve been for the past two days.  _ Steve wants you to come. Because he likes you _ . So much for that; you haven’t seen him since you got here. And you wore stupid heels for him. You kick half-heartedly at one of your shoes. 

“What’d that shoe ever do to you?” 

You look up, startled, at Steve leaning against the doorframe, arms crossed and hair falling just so over his eyes, which look a little red. There’s a cigarette wedged behind his ear.

“You’ve obviously never danced in heels,” you say. 

“I missed the dancing?” He sounds genuinely put out. 

“Well, it’s still happening in there.” You gesture vaguely toward the hallway. “Don’t let me stop you.” 

He starts moving, bobbing his head and shuffling his feet. He dances his way over to you and sticks out a hand. “C’mon,” he says. “Dance with me.” 

He looks so ridiculous you have to laugh, but you take his hand and stand up anyway, swaying a little on your feet. Maybe you had a little more wine that you thought; you can’t quite remember how full that cup was when you started. 

You giggle as Steve spins you in close to him, and you realize that what you thought was a cigarette behind his ear is actually a joint. 

“Are you high?” you ask. He looks relaxed, his body moving loose and languid. He’s still holding your hand. 

“Maybe,” he says with a shrug. “Are you drunk?” He’s grinning at you. 

“Definitely,” you say, gigging again, and Steve gives you another spin, and a dip. Neither of your movements match the music that is drifting in from the living room, but neither of you care. 

“I can’t believe I’m dancing with  _ Steve Harrington _ right now,” you say between fits of giggles. Your cheeks hurt you’re smiling so big. “Do you know how many girls in high school would have  _ died _ for this opportunity?”

“Would  _ you _ have died for the opportunity?” he asks. 

“You didn’t even know who I was in high school.” 

“Sure I did.” 

“Liar,” you accuse. “You didn’t recognize me at all when I started at Family Video.” 

“It just took me a minute, that’s all,” he says, his voice low. Suddenly neither of you are dancing anymore, and your giggles die in your throat as Steve grabs you by the waist and pulls you toward him. “We had chem together,” he murmurs, so close to your face that his breath ruffles your hair. 

“And algebra.” You don’t mean to whisper, but your voice suddenly isn’t working. 

You stand there looking at each other, the moment stretching out long, your heart pounding so hard you’re sure he can hear it. You blink and then his mouth is on yours, his arms wrapping around your back and your hands in his hair. Your lips part easy for him and he licks gently into your mouth, sending heat blooming heavy between your legs. 

“ _ Steve _ ,” you gasp, and you feel him grin even as he keeps kissing you. His fingers find the top button of your blouse just as Robin comes flying around the corner. 

“There you are!” she says, and you and Steve jump apart. “Time to go! I’m gonna miss my curfew!” 

You’re trying to catch your breath and find the world beneath your feet again, and trying to process what the hell Robin is yelling about, when Steve presses your shoes into your hands. When you look at him, he’s smirking as he swipes the back of his hand across his mouth.

“Better go,” he says as the two of you jog after Robin and Lisa. “Robin’s mom is crazy about her curfew ever since the...incident...at the mall last summer.”

You all scramble into the car and you don’t even have a chance to grab the seat belt before Robin tears out of the driveway, but it doesn’t matter because Steve is reaching for you, pulling you by your hips toward him. 

“Sshhhh,” he whispers, and you giggle just before he kisses you, hard. His hands are cool against your bare skin, skimming up under your shirt and along your ribcage, and goosebumps prickle up your arms. 

By the time Robin screeches to a stop in front of your house, you’re kneeling up on the seat beside him, all but in his lap. You try to pull away, but Steve holds you tight, cupping the back of your head with one hand. 

“Oh, Christ.” You can practically hear Robin rolling her eyes. “I have a curfew, Harrington!” She reaches into the backseat and shoves Steve’s shoulder so he’s forced to break away from you. Your cheeks are on fire as you open the door. 

Before you can get out of the car, Steve grabs your face between his palms and kisses you again. “I’ll call you,” he mumbles against your lips. All you can do is nod because you feel Robin shift the car into reverse and you have to practically jump out before it’s too late. 

Once you’re inside, you lean back against the door, dazed from kissing and hazy from wine. You touch your tingling lips with the tips of your fingers.  _ Did that really just happen? _


	2. Falling Down the Stairs of Your Smile

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Yikes, a little miscommunication!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow it's been a while. This chapter has been sitting half-finished forever, but I finally got around to finishing it (thanks, quarantine!). Hope you like it!
> 
> Title from song of the same name by The New Pornographers.

The morning sun streaming in through the curtains feels like a personal assault on your throbbing head, and you press your face further into the pillow with a groan. 

There’s a knock on your bedroom door, and you groan again. “Y/N? Are you ready for work?” It’s your mom.

You slowly, carefully turn your head to look at your alarm clock. 9:45. It’s Saturday; you’re supposed to be at work at 10:00.  _ Fuck _ . 

“Just a sec!” you call, moving as quickly as you can without causing your head to feel like it’s going to crack open. You’re never drinking wine again. 

After the quickest get-dressed, splash-water-on-your-face, brush-your-teeth, hair-in-a-ponytail of your life, you throw yourself into the passenger seat of your mom’s van. Thank God you only live five minutes from the store, and on the way your mom lets you rummage through her purse for change and some pain-killers. 

You’re still rubbing the sleep out of your eyes when you walk in the door at 10:03, and Keith barks, “You’re late.”

“Sorry,” you say, wincing a little at the volume of your own voice. 

It’s not until you’re shoving quarters into the vending machine that you really remember— _ you made out with Steve last night _ . Everything’s a little hazy, but you’re 95% sure that actually happened. You can still feel the impression of his lips on yours, his fingers digging into your waist, his hair where it brushed against your cheek. 

Your stomach sinks as you recall that today’s his day off. He said he’d call.  _ Does he even have my phone number? _ you wonder vaguely as you toss back your pain killers with a swallow of Diet Coke.  _ Well, he knows where you work, _ you tell yourself as you walk back out toward the register, smiling just a little. The anticipation of seeing him takes the edge off your headache.

Keith puts you to work checking in the bin of returned tapes and making sure they’re all rewound before restocking them, which isn’t the worst job you could have on a hungover Saturday morning. At least you don’t have to talk to anyone. And you’re free to pretend that you don’t desperately hope it’s Steve every time someone enters the store.

You spend all day glancing up at the door and all night staring down the telephone, but Steve doesn’t show up in either. 

You’re starting to wonder if you made up the whole thing. Maybe he didn’t actually say he would call. Or maybe he just kisses girls at parties and doesn’t mean anything by it. He is  _ Steve Harrington _ after all. Maybe you didn’t know him like you thought you knew him. Maybe he is kind of an asshole. 

**

“Dude, are you wearing cologne?” 

“What?” Steve asks, not looking at him. 

Dustin sniffs him. “You  _ are _ wearing cologne!”

“So what, okay?” Steve leans as far away from Dustin as he can without falling off of the stool he’s sitting on. Yeah, he might have used a few extra sprays of cologne this morning, but he  _ thought _ he was going to see Y/N today. “I was supposed to...do something else today before you called me screaming like a maniac about your stupid  _ science project _ .” 

Steve smears rubber cement all over the back of a piece of paper—one of Dustin’s many diagrams—and then sticks it onto the poster board. When Dustin called this morning—while Steve was in the middle of carefully doing his hair—Steve thought Dustin’s incoherent yells meant something was really wrong. Like, demodogs, mind flayer, evil Russians,  _ wrong _ . 

Turns out the kid was just freaking out over finishing his project for the science fair before he had to turn it in on Sunday morning. 

“Who makes you turn in a project on a Sunday anyway?” Steve grumbles as he reaches for the next diagram. He could be making out with Y/N right now and instead he’s in the Henderson’s garage huffing glue. He loves Dustin like the brother he never had, which means he can sometimes be just as irritating as a little brother would be. 

“It has to be set up by tomorrow because the science fair is Monday morning,” Dustin says like Steve just asked the most idiotic question he ever heard. He’s drawing another diagram so intently that his nose is almost touching the table. Something about magnets and temperature and hypotheses. Steve has no clue what any of it means, he’s just here to be an extra set of hands and moral support. 

“Where’s your gang of nerd friends, anyway? Why can’t one of them help you with this?” 

“They’re with their  _ girlfriends _ ,” Dustin says, rolling his eyes. 

Steve snorts. Since when is he the one helping with a science project and the nerds are hanging out with their girlfriends? 

“Nancy went to visit Jonathan this weekend and took Mike with her. And Lucas and Max just got back together so they’re probably off somewhere sucking face,” Dustin grumbles. 

Steve gives Dustin’s shoulder a friendly nudge with his fist. It’s been a couple of months since Dustin and Susie broke up—Steve was over here that day too—but it’s obviously still a sensitive subject. 

“Is that why you’re wearing cologne?” Dustin asks, finally looking up, his voice a little sad. “You got a girlfriend now, too?” 

“What?” Steve says, looking down. “No, man, no way. I don’t have a girlfriend.” 

“But you do have a crush on someone,” Dustin says, and when Steve looks up all the sadness has gone from his face and he’s wiggling his eyebrows suggestively. 

“No!” Steve tries to deny, but Dustin just stares at him. “Okay,  _ maybe _ , there’s this girl at work.” Dustin keeps staring. “And we kissed last night.” Dustin’s face breaks open into his signature, toothless grin. 

“Is she cool?” Dustin asks, going back to work on the diagram he’s drawing. 

“Of course she’s cool.” 

“But is she  _ nice _ ?” 

“She’s perfect, Dustin. You’re gonna love her.”

**

Monday afternoon your stomach is in knots as you walk into Family Video. You know he’s gonna be there, and you’ve spent the past two days talking yourself out of quitting your job so you never have to see him again. You really need this job. 

You force one foot in front of the other through the store to the time clock so you can punch in, keeping your eyes straight ahead and hoping desperately that maybe  _ he _ quit, or at the very least he’s busy and didn’t see you come in. 

It’s just your luck that you nearly careen into him going around the corner to the break room.

“Y/N! Hey!” he says.

“Hey,” you say without looking up. You reach past him for your timecard. 

“Uh...how was your weekend?” 

He pushes his hair back, and you want to cry. You don’t know how you’re going to play this off like nothing’s changed, like you’re still just coworkers, like you haven’t just spent the past three days obsessing over the way his lips felt against yours. You swallow hard against the knot of emotion rising in your throat. 

“Busy,” you lie. 

“Oh. Yeah, me too.” You shuffle around him to throw your purse into your locker. You breathe a sigh of relief when you come back out to the floor and he’s busy helping a customer find a movie. 

It’s unusually busy for a Monday, but you’re thankful because it means you manage to avoid Steve for the rest of your shift. 

Until he sneaks up behind you while you’re doing the closing duties. A finger pokes in between your ribs and you nearly jump out of your skin. 

“Jesus!” you cry. “You scared the shit out of me!” You press a hand against your chest where your heart is pounding from fright and what feels a little like elation. 

“I’m like a ninja,” he says with a tiny shrug. His grin is contagious, and you’re momentarily distracted from how miserable you feel over him.

“Hey, do you need a ride home?” And just like that you come crashing back to reality. You can’t imagine getting into his car, being surrounded by  _ him _ , and being able to play it cool. 

“No,” you say steadily. “My brother’s coming to get me.” 

“Oh, right, of course,” Steve says with another shrug. 

You bite your lip as he turns and walks away.

**

“I thought you said she liked me!” Steve whines to Robin as he watches Y/N’s brother’s car peel out of the parking lot. 

“Sure seemed like she liked you on Friday,” Robin responds from where she’s cleaning up the video return area. “What the hell did you do?”

“I didn’t do anything!”

“Well, there’s your problem.”

“What?  _ I didn’t do anything! _ How can she be pissed at me?”

“Yeah. And didn’t you say you would call her?”

“Oh, shit,” Steve murmurs. It comes back to him in a flood of feelings—the feel of her lips against his, the feel of her cheeks between his hands, the feel of her breath against his face, the feeling in his gut when she smiled at him. When she smiled at him after he said he would call her. 

“Yeah, dingus. Oh, shit.” Robin’s throwing tapes into the restock bin like she’s some kind of all-star pitcher, each one landing with a loud plastic clatter. “I told her you liked her, and then you kissed and bailed. What’s that about?”

“I didn’t bail!” Steve pushes his hands through his hair. “I just...forgot.” 

“You told her you’d call. You should have called.” 

“I used to be good at this you know,” he says, running his hands through his hair again. 

“Yeah, well, you managed to fuck this one up pretty spectacularly.” 

**

You spend the next two days holed up in your room, absorbed in a trashy romance novel, which is your usual way of coping with anything unpleasant. By the time you emerge to go to work on Thursday afternoon, you’ve almost convinced yourself that you’re okay with kissing Steve Harrington being a one-time thing. At least you got to experience it once, right?

It’s busy when you walk in. Keith puts you on the register immediately, and you barely have a chance to look up until 7:00pm when it suddenly dies down completely. 

You hear someone coming up the aisle and you know in your gut that it’s Steve. Have you fallen so hard for him that you even recognize the sound of his footsteps? You hurriedly pull a notepad toward you, grabbing a pen out of the cup next to the register and keeping your head down. 

He leans over the counter right in front of you, but you’re wholly engrossed in the flower you’re doodling. 

“Hey, I’ve been meaning to ask you something,” he says.

“Yeah?” You still don’t look up. 

“I, uh, I just need your advice about something.”

“About what?” 

“I kinda have a crush on this girl that’s in here all the time. Do you think I should ask her out?”

Your hand freezes in the middle of shading in a flower petal. Apparently it wasn’t bad enough that he kissed you and then ignored you for a week, now he has to ask you for advice about some other girl. You bite your lip and try not to cry. _ _

“Uh, you’re Steve Harrington,” you manage to say. “I’m pretty sure you know a lot more about this stuff than I do.”

“Well, the past couple times I’ve tried to ask a girl out, it hasn’t gone so well for me.” 

You’re quiet for a minute before you finally force out, “I think she’d have to be an idiot to not go out with you.”

“I was hoping you would say that,” he says, grinning. You’re seriously considering just crawling under the counter and staying there for the rest of the night. 

“Well, good luck,” you say, turning back to your doodle. But you stop when Steve’s fingers close around your wrist. 

“Wait,” he says. “I wasn’t finished.” 

You stifle a sigh and lift your head to look at him. He’s still smiling, like he knows something you don’t. 

“So, you’ll go out with me?” 

“What?” The world slips sideways under you. 

“You’ll go out with me then?” He tugs on your arm, and you lean forward over the counter, your face just a hair’s breadth away from his. He’s still grinning, and you’re pretty sure he just asked you out.

“And if you say no, you’d be an idiot, which you aren’t, so…” He shrugs. “I’m pretty sure you have to say yes.”

You can’t get your voice to work, and you just  _ stare _ at him. Maybe you  _ are _ an idiot. 

Steve raises his eyebrows, realization dawning in his eyes. “You didn’t think I was talking about you, did you?”

You shake your head. And then nod. You’re not making any fucking sense.

“I’m sorry,” he says, grimacing. “I’m usually a lot better at this, but I apparently lose all my cool when you’re around. I thought when we kissed…”

“I wasn’t sure,” you say, finally, quiet. “I thought, you know, we were drunk and—”

“Y/N, do you want to go out with me?” His knuckles brush across your cheekbone. 

“Yes,” you breathe just before he closes the space between you.

The soft, warm press of his lips is everything you remember it to be, and it doesn’t last nearly as long as you want it to when you both hear Keith walking up the aisle and spring apart. Steve pushes a hand through his hair, looking at you with slightly manic eyes, and you have to cover your giggle with a cough. 

“Can I give you a ride home?” he asks, his voice low, as Keith turns the lock on the door.

**Author's Note:**

> Comments and kudos mean the world! Thanks for reading! <3


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